


Harry Potter in 3+ Sentences

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Series: Syrena's 3-sentence fics [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, 3 Sentence Fiction, Dudley Do-Right, Elvendork - Freeform, Gen, Loony Nonby and the Cornish Pixies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3959122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NEW: Ch. 7 and onward! Updated with fills from the 2015 and 2016 ficathons hosted by alette and caramelsilver. </p><p>Ch. 1-6: More of my contributions to the 2015 Three Sentence Ficathon hosted by the lovely Rthstewart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 3/4 Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lizzardgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lizzardgirl), [lovepeaceohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovepeaceohana/gifts), [RuanChunXian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuanChunXian/gifts), [isabelquinn](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=isabelquinn), [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts), [Sidonie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sidonie/gifts).



> Prompt: Harry Potter, any, we've got all the time in the world

Remus, whose life had been governed by the harsh, exacting lunar calendar, knew that time was an unforgiving, relentless thing. Each day he gazed at his wife's swollen belly and firmly committed it to memory, so she and their child (whoever would have thought it? _His_ child!) could be the last image in his mind before he died, if the worst should come to pass.

He never imagined she would be there with him, when time ran out - but suddenly, when it was all over and they stood together in a shining white Hospital Wing, his old enemy Time relinquished its stranglehold, and Tonks pulled him, laughing, into a waltz - and neither missed a step.


	2. Board Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Harry Potter, any, Wizarding Game of Thrones (the board game)

"I still like chess better," grumbled Ron as he nudged a dragon into place ("Ow! The lousy blighter bit my thumb!").

"That's because you always win at chess," Hermoine pointed out.

"Well, that too - but I just meant there's too much bloody politics in this game!" he countered, and Hermoine was torn between correcting his language, his grammar, and his spectacularly poor choice of stronghold.


	3. Any other name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Harry Potter, McGonagall, what were you thinking when you named him James Sirius?

While the Potters were clearly trying to make up for their ill-conceived ( _ahem_ ) names for their firstborn, Minerva thought Albus Severus was going a bit too far. Years later, when the second son entered her classroom for the first time, she mentally revised her opinion of both former headmasters - and not for the better.

As for James Sirius, well, it was rather like tying a bell on a cat - where obedience was too much to ask, forewarning would do.


	4. I can smile at the old days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Harry Potter, Professor Neville Longbottom, forgetting the password (again)

When an ickle firstie, red-faced second year or frenzied OWL student forgot the password to the common room, everyone in the school knew to ask Professor Longbottom. Not just because didn't scold, but because he always remembered the password - no matter what House! 

It had been over fifteen years since Neville had been nervous enough to forget something, and the recollection of old panic had faded instead to a fond nostalgia for his school days... and if Neville occasionally changed the password to the Gryffindor common room right before Sirius Black dropped by for a visit, well, sometimes history gets a little twisted in the repeating.


	5. Right vs. Might

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dolores Umbridge, a Gryffindor gone wrong

Somewhere along the way, Right and Good turned into Must and Should, and a whole fleet of well-meaning but ill-formed thoughts and intentions morphed into a series of inflexible Rules. They grew up around Dolores like Devil's snare, ever tightening and restricting until all questions were choked before she could utter them, leaving her with a soft, halting cough as a sort of intellectual stutter. And then her Rules became her very Reason for being: Dolores Umbridge would be that unlooked-for savior who would guide and govern and protect all the simple, vulnerable citizens from ever feeling that slightest thrill of doubt.


	6. Self-portrait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Harry Potter/Voldemort (or Tom Riddle), me myself and I

A week after the final battle, Harry looked at himself in the mirror - really looked, for the first time. Shouldn't something be outwardly different, now that a splinter of Riddle's soul no longer lurked behind his eyes? But everything was the same, down to the same old scar and the same old freckle Ginny had kissed earlier that morning. Then Harry smiled at his reflection, and saw nothing uncanny peering back at him - something had changed, after all.


	7. Chicken Soup for the Marauder's Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from sidonie: Any, any, Bad moon rising

"If you're visiting Remus, bring him some chicken soup," ordered Lily, "and try not to catch anything — I won't be your nursemaid, James Potter, so you can just forget that fantasy right now!"

Bewildered, James stood holding a steaming pot of soup while Padfoot laughed his empty head off, snorting out words like "contagious" and "nurse" at regular intervals.

Peter rolled his eyes, conjured a pair of flowered oven mitts, and wished mightily that Sirius wouldn't come up with the idea of nursemaid werewolf fantasies for at least a week — Remus was always so snappish around the full moon.


	8. My brother's (secret)keeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from mockerybird: Regulus/Sirius, secret

When Regulus Black was three years old, he broke a vase; his brother Sirius, who did not lie, trod on the pieces so he could truthfully say "I broke it."

When Regulus was twelve years old, he watched wide-eyed from behind a tree as his brother turned into a dog; every full moon for the next two years, he rose early to erase the tracks of dog, wolf and stag from the grounds they roamed so freely.

When Regulus turned seventeen, he stumbled across the first secret he could not keep — because, in the end, brothers bound by magic and mark held no claim that compared to the power of blood.


	9. Under the moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from shipperchan_dna: Remus~Sirius, even though Sirius is James' best friend he doesn't has the same level of understanding with him, that he has with Remus.

For all he shared with James, Sirius would never be able to make him understand the one thing that defined his very soul; James came from a tight-knit family — no matter what happened, he would always have a home. No, Sirius couldn't talk with James about the hole in his heart.

Only Remus understood what it was like to be a lone wolf.


	10. Dudley Dursley Do-Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from silvr_dagger: dream logic

The nightmares, when they came, didn't bother Dudley much — because when the half-remembered, half-imagined skeletal hands reached for him, he heard Harry's voice, and then his vision was filled with light.

That was when the good part began: when Dudley could fly without wings, without a jetpack, without a broom (something he was sure even Harry couldn't do), leaping and zooming and soaring over the old school, the empty playground, all the little identical roofs, over Surrey and over London and over the sea.

And then Dudley would dream he was taller, thinner, lantern-jawed like he'd always wanted to be, and for once his name was the hero's name, but none of it mattered — there was only the joy of her face, her freckles, her smile.


	11. Pack dynamics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from janetlin: Bellatrix/Fenrir, "I hate you" "I know"

Perhaps madness recognized itself in each other's eyes when they met, and from that moment they were bound to love or hate each other.

"Filthy animal," she'd spit at him, "half-breed mongrel" and "worthless cur," and his return insults were equally canine and cruel. 

Still, they defended each other even more viciously than they fought — and unspoken between them lurked the knowledge that two powerful Betas were capable of wresting control away from a lone Alpha.


	12. Full circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Harry Potter, Harry had been a fan of wizarding comics like Loony Nonby vs. Cornish Pixie.

When Harry read to his children, he steered away from the most popular books, which were always about heroes or superheroes, or quests or dragons or archvillains; instead, he gravitated towards frivolous stories, adventures and misadventures with no grand schemes, no master plots.

"Look, Lily," he said to his youngest ("Daaaad," complained James, "let me see, she's too young to read"), "the Cornish Pixies have trapped Loony Nonby inside his own hat again" — at which point all the Potters howled with laughter.

(Ten years ago, if you had told Harry that he'd have such fond memories in any way associated with Gilderoy Lockhart, he'd have sent you to St. Mungo's to check for spell damage.)


	13. Family resemblance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Tonks and Lupin, their amazement when Teddy's hair changes color

"All this time I was worried he'd take after  _me_..." Remus trailed off at his wife's hysterical laughter.

"He still could," she hooted, pointing at Teddy's sudden shock of pink hair. "Metamorphmagi are great at impressions — just wait 'til I show him  _Teen Wolf!_ "


	14. True colors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Any, any, violet and vermilion

For a Hufflepuff, Tonks lived in a surprisingly Ravenclawish fashion: ordered chaos, or perhaps chaotic disorder, a whirlwind of misplaced papers and mismatched socks, cheerfully uncoordinated colors and ruefully uncoordinated movements.

Perhaps because of the small maelstroms she carried with her, Tonks took to introducing order in unlikely places, such as arranging her books by color scheme, and choosing her hair color by alphabetization. Her latest triumph, violet and vermilion streaks, might have clashed with Hufflepuff yellows, but they were marginally better than last week's chartreuse and champagne… speaking of which, she hoped Professor Snape's facial tic wasn't permanent, or she could look forward to a year of scrubbing cauldron bottoms.  


	15. Rocket science

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Harry Potter series, Hermione Granger, rewriting the Muggle Studies curriculum to actually reflect what muggle-life is like
> 
> Written in response to a fill by archersangel

By the time she reached the Third Years' second semester curriculum, Hermione had determined a whole new course was required in Non-Magical Sciences.

If she had to read one more set of lecture notes on how cars drank petrol squeezed from rocks, quills never ran out because Muggles used very thin ink called "lead," or anything at all about computers being powered by mice running on wheels, Hermione thought she might scream.

When she vented to Ron, he seemed flabbergasted at her surprise: "Of course it's all wrong, 'Mione, but honestly — where did you think I got the idea that fellytone cords curled up because of cramps when you speak too fast?"


	16. What's in a name?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Any, any, rosa rubicundior, lilio candidior
> 
> The phrase comes from Latin. The complete saying: _rosa rubicundior, lilio candidior, omnibus formosior, semper in te glorior_ translates to "redder than the rose, whiter than the lilies, fairer than all things, I do ever glory in thee"

" _Lilio candidior, o_ _mnibus formosior,_ fairer than... an encyclopedia? Are you writing a love letter to my cousin or to my sister?" Albus scowled. "Not that Rose wouldn't appreciate Latin," he added grudgingly. "So would Aunt Hermione," he added, brightening.

Scorpius wasn't fazed. "Fairer than all things," he corrected with the trademark Malfoy supercilious smirk that made Albus want to lob a bludger at his best friend. But then Scorpius frowned in worry at his parchment. "Redder that the rose, whiter than the lilies — is that too ambiguous? I don't want Lily to think I'm comparing her with anyone else... She's perfect as it is."

Albus groaned.

Scorpius bit the end of his quill. "What is with your family and flower names, anyway?"

Albus could have pointed out Scorpius's own grandmother Narcissa, or made some wisecrack about snapdragons, or even gone all serious about the family's choice to honor Grandmother Lily... but judging by his friend's wild-eyed look, a little discretion was called for. "Could be worse," Albus said with a grin. "Have you met my great-aunt Petunia?" Okay, so Discretion wasn't his middle name... but it was no worse than Severus. Come to think of it, his family was kind of rubbish at names. They kept recycling old ones. "I'm gonna name my kid something new," he decided.

Scorpius grunted.

"I'm serious."

"That one's taken."

Albus scowled. 

"There's always Elvendork," continued Scorpius. "It's unisex, you know."

With a cry of frustration, Albus left his friend alone in their dormitory in favor of saner company on the Quidditch pitch — which was probably what Scorpius had intended all along. After all, it was probably a bit uncomfortable to write love letters to a girl when her brother was hovering nearby, critiquing penmanship and butchering the Latin language.

Scorpius dipped his quill into the inkwell and let it drip as a goofy smile spread across his face.

Snooping from the doorway, Albus gave up in disgust. If he ever had kids, he'd name them after something original  _and_  unromantic, like... Snorkack. Or Skrewt. Maybe Elvendork wasn't so bad after all...


	17. Sins of omission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from runespoor7: Harry Potter, Remus Lupin, what goes through his head when Harry tries to warn him about Snape in PoA, "Professor Snape would do anything to teach DADA" after Snape brings him the Wolfsbane potion?

No, thought Remus, but  _I_ would do anything to teach here — and I  _have._  

He hadn't mentioned the secret passages (although, he reasoned, he had booby-trapped the ones the Weasley twins hadn't already covered), and he had failed to report Sirius's animagus (no rationale was forthcoming, except for an ache in his chest that would not go away) — both omissions tantamount to lies... so what was one more?  
  
"Professor Snape has no reason to wish me harm," Remus tried to reassure Harry (and the adolescent skepticism he received in return looked so much like James that he could hardly breathe), and he would have said more but the almost-lies tasted sour on his tongue, reminiscent of the smoking goblet Harry was trying so hard to warn him about.


End file.
